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5th Global Congress On IP And The Public Interest: Successes, Strategies Highlighted
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/5th-global-congress-on-ip-and-the-public-interest-successes-strategies-highlighted
<b>More than 400 activists, academics and practitioners from over 50 countries gathered at this year’s Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest, according to organisers.</b>
<p>The story by David Branigan was published in <a class="external-link" href="http://www.ip-watch.org/2018/10/03/5th-global-congress-ip-public-interest-successes-strategies-highlighted/">Intellectual Property Watch</a> on October 3, 2018.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At the Congress, participants shared success stories, developed strategies, and engaged in critical dialogue to re-think and re-invent intellectual property systems that serve the public interest.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The <a href="http://www.cvent.com/events/5th-global-congress-on-intellectual-property-and-the-public-interest/event-summary-cf2ca0aa63414d4d9dd9dafed6a09a4c.aspx">5th Global Congress on Intellectual Property and The Public Interest</a> was hosted by American University Washington College of Law in Washington, DC from 27-29 September. The core goal of the Congress, according to the website, is “to promote evidence-based policy-making by fostering partnerships between academics and policy advocates from around the world.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Congress featured three concurrent, but interconnected, tracks centred around copyright user rights, access to medicines, and trade. A list of the many panels, workshops and other events of the Congress can be found in the event <a href="http://www.cvent.com/events/5th-global-congress-on-intellectual-property-and-the-public-interest/agenda-cf2ca0aa63414d4d9dd9dafed6a09a4c.aspx">agenda</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Key themes that emerged from the plenary sessions of the Congress include the need to take a critical look at the association between intellectual property and development, the important roles that both IP activism and academic research play in shifting practice, and the complex tension between pursuing incremental IP reform in the short-term, while envisioning and building toward IP system change in the long-term.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Participants were asked by organisers to contribute statements and to vote in an online poll to chart and map participant perspectives at this year’s Congress. The interactive results of the poll can be viewed <a href="https://pol.is/report/r7k76vmnhmnann5npxdmk">here</a>.</p>
<p><b>Access to Medicines Track</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Intellectual Property Watch</i> followed the access to medicines track throughout the Congress, to develop a broad picture of the persistent challenges and new strategies in this field, and to identify key initiatives to feature in the coming months. Below are some of the themes that emerged over the course of the sessions, along with key highlights.</p>
<p><b>Compulsory Licensing</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some participants highlighted their countries’ use of compulsory licensing to reduce drug prices and to maximise health budget capacity, with notable examples from Ecuador, Chile and Malaysia. Participants identified that many other countries, however, are not taking full advantage of these flexibilities, which can be partly attributable to a lack of awareness regarding these flexibilities, and a lack of systems to employ them. They noted that this is often compounded by IP-centric technical assistance that frames strong IP systems as necessary for development. Many participants argued that compulsory licensing, along with other intellectual property flexibilities, should be fully normalised, and that IP law should be structured to maximize the use of these flexibilities, rather than treat them as exceptions. Some also argued for the institution of international or regional coordination mechanisms for compulsory licensing.</p>
<p><b>Competition Law</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many participants, representing activist organisations working for access to medicines, noted that their campaigns were largely focused on the price of a particular drug in a particular country. Pursuing access to medicines on such a piecemeal basis, they explained, does not produce sustainable change within the IP system itself. This, they noted, is a similar challenge faced when issuing compulsory licences. Participants explained that pursuing strategies based in competition law could perhaps offer a more sustainable solution to address excessive pricing across a range of drugs. This strategy, they explained, could move forward key legal reforms to systemically challenge pharmaceutical monopolies and bring about more competitive drug pricing.</p>
<p><b>Innovation</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to participants, the term innovation infers a particular narrative, similar to “intellectual property,” and has been used by industry to justify the pharmaceutical patent system. One participant explained that patents are currently being granted on the basis of utility, rather than real inventiveness. He explained that the term innovation has come to represent the industry-led process of shaping markets and cycles of consumption, and that therefore, we need to reconsider our use of the term.</p>
<p><b>Research and Development</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many participants highlighted the dysfunction of the current monopoly incentive system for pharmaceutical research and development, and advocated for other systems such as delinking the price of pharmaceuticals from the cost of research and development and the volume of sales. Others highlighted examples of how drugs for neglected diseases can be developed and manufactured without intellectual property incentives, and still others how drug licences can be efficiently pooled to facilitate widespread generic drug production. Another participant further illustrated the dysfunction of the current system, noting that much of the research and development of patented pharmaceuticals was publicly funded, and that there needs to be greater public accountability in drug pricing.</p>
<p><b>Medicines as Non-Patentable</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">One important perspective, expressed by participants across tracks, is simply that medicines should be non-patentable and accessible to all people, without restriction.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Intellectual Property Watch</i> will feature some of the key access to medicines initiatives highlighted at the Congress in greater depth and detail in the coming months.</p>
<p><b>Background of the Global Congress</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The First Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest was held in 2011 at American University Washington College of Law in Washington, DC, and the specific policy goals of the Congress were summarized in the 2011 <a href="http://infojustice.org/washington-declaration-html">Washington Declaration on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Congress was subsequently hosted in 2012 by Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade of FGV Direito, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2013 by University of Cape Town IP Unit, in Cape Town, South Africa, and in 2015 by the Centre for Internet and Society, in New Delhi, India. Intellectual Property Watch has attended them all.</p>
<p>More background information on the Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest can be found at <a href="http://infojustice.org/">infojustice.org</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/5th-global-congress-on-ip-and-the-public-interest-successes-strategies-highlighted'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/5th-global-congress-on-ip-and-the-public-interest-successes-strategies-highlighted</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminIntellectual Property RightsCopyrightAccess to Knowledge2018-10-31T01:57:59ZNews ItemKEI Seminar on "Appraising the WIPO Broadcast Treaty and its Implications on Access to Culture"
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/kei-seminar-on-appraising-the-wipo-broadcast-treaty-and-its-implications-on-access-to-culture
<b>Anubha Sinha participated in a seminar organized by KEI on October 3 and 4, 2018 at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Anubha spoke on the panel titled "Rationale, Beneficiaries and Scope (of the Treaty)".</b>
<p>Links to the webcast can be found here:</p>
<ul>
<li>October 3: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYcvaeyS04k">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYcvaeyS04k</a> </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>October 4: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC5AdokTF2o">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC5AdokTF2o</a></li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/kei-seminar-on-appraising-the-wipo-broadcast-treaty-and-its-implications-on-access-to-culture'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/kei-seminar-on-appraising-the-wipo-broadcast-treaty-and-its-implications-on-access-to-culture</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminIntellectual Property RightsAccess to Knowledge2018-10-31T01:53:27ZNews ItemBroadcasters Eager For Global Signal Protection; Others Warn Of Major Players Sneaking In
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/broadcasters-eager-for-global-signal-protection-others-warn-of-major-players-sneaking-in
<b>Anubha Sinha was recently part of a panel discussion on broadcast treaty. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Catherine Saez was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.ip-watch.org/2018/10/09/broadcasters-eager-global-signal-protection-others-warn-major-players-sneaking/">published in Intellectual Property Watch</a> on October 9, 2018.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The so-called broadcasting treaty being negotiated at the World Intellectual Property Organization is supported by broadcasters’ organisations in the hope that it will stanch signal piracy. Some voices however, warn about creating a right that might be captured by large internet corporations such as Facebook, Google and Netflix, which can be a stone’s throw away from acquiring radio or television channels to qualify for the protection of the potential treaty. They also challenge the duration and scope of the protection. A seminar gathering stakeholders last week looked at implications of the treaty.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Knowledge Ecology International organised <a href="https://www.keionline.org/29025">a seminar</a> on 3-4 October gathering civil society speakers, international organisation representatives, and a representative of the broadcaster community.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Discussions were based on a <a href="http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/copyright/en/sccr_27/sccr_27_2_rev.pdf">working document</a> [pdf] for a treaty on the protection of broadcasting organisations, and a <a href="http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/copyright/en/sccr_36/sccr_36_6.pdf">revised consolidated text</a> [pdf] on definitions, object of protection, rights to be granted and other issues, prepared by the SCCR Chair Daren Tang of Singapore, to be discussed at the <a href="http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/details.jsp?meeting_id=46444">next session</a> of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights, from 26-30 November.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Broadcasters: Current Protection not Sufficient</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Heijo Ruijsenaars, head of intellectual property law at the European Broadcasting Union, explained the need for broadcasters to have additional rights going beyond the 1961 <a href="http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/treaties/text.jsp?file_id=289795">Rome Convention</a> for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Key reasons for a treaty include the need for broadcasting to protect their investment in programming and dissemination, he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The current protection in view of the technology is not sufficient in a time where viewers want to access content whenever and wherever they want, which means it has to be delivered in a different way than traditional broadcasting, according to Ruijsenaars. This shift in technology also gave way to increasing piracy, he said, adding that signal piracy is a global issue and it is important to have a treaty covering everybody on the planet.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ruijsenaars said there is evidence of ever-growing piracy and WIPO does not discuss enough the reasons underlining broadcasters’ neighbouring rights. For broadcasters it is not the delivery of signal that matters, he said, but that the public is provided with programmes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Benefits for the public of those programmes include the provision of diversified information on national and local matters; educational content; special programming for niche or minority audiences; enhancement of public awareness and media literacy; supporting of independent audiovisual production; promotion of local authors, actors and artists; and the creation of new services on multiple platforms, his presentation listed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">If the focus of the discussion remains merely about the signal, he said, then it misses the broadcasters’ activity. Broadcasters make a programme, then embed it in a signal, which is then broadcast. The broadcast is the tool by which programmes are delivered to the public but producing the signal is just a necessary technical activity, he added.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The most important element of broadcasting is its independence from the audience, according to Ruijsenaars, it does not matter how many people are watching. It is also independent from the content since the content is covered by copyright, and independent from transmission, since each signal has its own protection.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the digital age, most people have hybrid television which can receive both online and traditional signal from broadcasters at the same time, without them being aware of, or caring about, the difference, he said. In Europe, some 60 million households own an internet-connected TV set, he added.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The treaty would not impede but foster freedom of expression, it would stimulate innovation in consumer devices. would have no impact on the public domain or on internet service providers’ liability, he argued, adding, “If there is no treaty, everybody loses out.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Beware of Large Internet Corporations Morphing </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Anubha Sinha of the Center for Internet and Society, said the issue of signal piracy affects mostly sports broadcasters, and a potential narrow treaty could address this particular problem. A treaty as the one considered at the moment could have unintended adverse effects, she said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The beneficiaries of the treaty appear to be only broadcasting organisations, but today it is impossible to distinguish between computer networks and wired or wireless means, she noted, asking about the risk of accidentally creating rights that could be misused “by the likes of Google, Facebook, Netflix…”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Facebook recently acquired the rights to broadcast La Liga games in the Indian sub-continent, she noted, warning about the “weak treatment” given to exceptions and limitations in the current treaty draft. She added that the treaty would affect the existing commons and the methods by which commons are being made accessible today.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The 1961 Rome Convention is narrow and broadcasters are facing competition from internet-based services that operate with fewer rights, but provide services that the public wants, which is part of the problem, according to James Love from Knowledge Ecology International.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Citing SCCR Chair Tang’s current proposed language, Love said that the definition of a broadcaster stating that “entities that deliver their programme-carrying signal exclusively by means of a computer network do not fall under the definition of a ‘broadcasting organization'” intends to exclude companies such as YouTube, Spotify, and Netflix, but would include other companies being broadcasters and also having internet platforms at the same time, such as the BBC.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">That is creating a special right. which might be challenged by other companies arguing that those rights are contrary to a level playing field, he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is also very easy for companies such as Facebook and Amazon to buy a radio station somewhere on the planet, thinking otherwise is naive, he said. This point was also made by Ryan Merkley of Creative Commons.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Love produced a <a href="http://media.ip-watch.org/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Selected-developments-in-technologies-KEI-Oct-2018.pdf?e4fccf">colour-coded document</a> [pdf] showing developments in technologies to distribute, broadcast or stream audio and audiovisual content from 1887 to 2018.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In white, the document lists what concerns traditional broadcasting, in yellow internet technologies, in blue technologies to make physical copies of audio and audiovisual recordings, and in green norm-setting activities. The vast majority of items listed belong to the yellow sections.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Players in the yellow fields will be the beneficiaries, he said. “You will be transferring money” to large platforms, the biggest of which are in the United States, he said, adding that the concentration will be much larger than in the radio and television arena.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To remedy those potential dangers, Love’s presentation suggested to eliminate post-fixation rights, and install mandatory exceptions including news of the day, public affairs, documentary films, education, and quotations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ruijsenaars argued that the European Union has legislation protecting post-fixation rights, and that did not bring any issues either with rights holders or the public interest.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>50 Years Protection ‘Outrageous’</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Love also challenged the proposed 50 years of protection. “If you were to keep a copy of something for 50 years,” the chances are that no technology would still be able to read it, he said, adding that if the treaty protects post-fixation rights, it is no longer protecting a signal.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Cristiana Gonzalez of the Centro: Tecnologia, Espaços, políticas públicas, Brazil, also said the treaty should be confined to immediate transmission without post-fixation rights. In Brazil, she said, organisations may not acquire protection for any deferred transmission.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The proposed term of protection should be no more than a few seconds, 24 hours if one wants to be generous, she said. Extending it further could have consequences for the public domain, impact cultural diversity and democracy, by for example preventing access to historical information, she said, adding that giving a monopoly over content could be dangerous.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Merkley said the current draft of the treaty could have a number of negative impacts. The world has and is changing, he said, and it is no longer a matter of creating rules for industry alone. “Every one of you is a copyright holder,” he said, adding that the draft treaty forgets about the public.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There have been many poor choices for the web, he argued, and the treaty would yet be another wrong choice. Negotiators have to be careful not to disturb the whole ecosystem to support an industry threatened by improvements in technology, he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He also called 50 years of protection “unreasonable” and said in the most compelling case of protection for sports event broadcasting, should be termed in hours. The most alarming in the proposed text, according to Merkley is that it would give post-fixation rights for public domain works. “This is outrageous,” he said, as broadcasters do not own this content and did not create it so they should have no rights over it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ruijsenaars commented that if the content is in the public domain, like a film, it can be found somewhere else than in the broadcast, which is protected.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Amalia Toledo of the Karisma Foundation said the rights awarded by the treaty to broadcasters could impede or restrict the flow of information that may not be protected by copyright, such as news of the day, and speeches from public officials. In Latin America, she said, there are various examples of how the political power has used copyright protection to silence voices.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This new right would be a direct attack on creators’ possibility to share their works as they see fit, she said. It would also ignore the public interest in having access to information, knowledge and culture, she added.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">If a treaty is agreed against signal piracy, the protection should be for hours after the transmission, not 20 or 50 years, she said.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/broadcasters-eager-for-global-signal-protection-others-warn-of-major-players-sneaking-in'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/broadcasters-eager-for-global-signal-protection-others-warn-of-major-players-sneaking-in</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminIntellectual Property RightsAccess to Knowledge2018-10-16T13:55:10ZNews Item5th Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/5th-global-congress-on-ip-and-the-public-interest
<b>Sunil Abraham, Anubha Sinha and Swaraj Paul Barooah attended the Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest, in Washington DC, from September 24 - 29, 2018. The event was co-organized by PublicCitizen, Washington College of Law, American University, O'Neill Institute and the American Assembly, Columbia University.</b>
<p>CIS participated in several of the sessions spread over the 5 days:</p>
<ul>
<li>Anubha Sinha attended the pre-Congress trainings on Users' Rights, and Internet and Trade on September 24 and 25, 2018.</li>
<li>Sunil Abraham and Anubha Sinha attended a WIPO SCCR Strategy meeting organised by Knowledge Ecology International, DC.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Swaraj Paul Barooah made a presentation at the Microsoft Panel Event titled "Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence" held at the Microsoft Innovation and Policy Centre. His co-panelists were Pam Samuelson (Berkeley Law), Niva Elkin-Koren (Uni of Haifa) and Pedro Mizukami (Founder of Centro, Brazil). The session was moderated by Mike Carroll and Christine Farley (both of American University).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Anubha Sinha and Sunil Abraham along with Jorge Contreras (University of Utah), spoke on the panel titled "Fueling the Affordable Smartphone Revolution in India" where they presented work on the PT project.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">CIS signed on as supporting members to the Civil Society Proposal for a Treaty on Education and Research Activities (TERA) which was formally finalized and made ready for organizational and individual endorsements. The treaty can be <a class="external-link" href="https://tinyurl.com/TERA-GCV">viewed here</a>.</li>
<hr />
</ul>
<div>For more info on the sessions <a class="external-link" href="http://www.cvent.com/events/5th-global-congress-on-intellectual-property-and-the-public-interest/agenda-cf2ca0aa63414d4d9dd9dafed6a09a4c.aspx">click here</a></div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/5th-global-congress-on-ip-and-the-public-interest'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/5th-global-congress-on-ip-and-the-public-interest</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminIntellectual Property RightsAccess to Knowledge2018-10-02T03:01:50ZNews ItemRTI request to Indian Patents Office for Form 27 (Statement of Working of patents), March 2016
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-request-to-indian-patents-office-for-form-27-statement-of-working-of-patents-march-2016
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society filed this request under the Right to Information Act in March 2016 as part of research for the paper: Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products: An Empirical Assessment of India's Form 27 Practice and Compliance (July 2017). We sought forms pertaining to 61 of the patents found in our patent landscaping study. These forms were not available on the online public databases, InPASS and IPAIRS, at the time of the filing the RTI request. Research assistance was provided by intern Shreshth Wadhwa.</b>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3004283">Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products: An Empirical Assessment of India's Form 27 Practice and Compliance</a> (July 2017)</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Patent landscaping study -- <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2756486">Patents and Mobile Devices in India: An Empirical Survey</a> (April 2016)</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">We filed our first application under the RTI Act with the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks in Mumbai in June 2015 for procuring Form 27 not available through their online databases, but received a generic response about how to download Form 27 from the online databases. The IPO also stated, “The desired information relates to about 1700 patents for all the years, to supply and trace out the information physical form requires huge humane resource and need to divert the office staff for some days which would hampers the day-todays- official work therefore, the information is proactively disclosed in the office website for the public”. (View the application and response <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-request-to-indian-patents-office-for-form-27-statement-of-working-of-patents-2015">here</a>)</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">In view of this response, we filed another RTI application with the same office in March 2016, and restricted the number of patents to 61. The patents represent a cross-section of owners in our landscaping study. (View <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/methodology-statements-of-working-form-27-of-indian-mobile-device-patents">methodology</a>). We also stated in the RTI request that we had already searched the online databases for the forms and did not find any. The IPO replied in April 2016 that it could provide CIS with forms for eleven of the requested patents. As for the rest of the forms, the IPO stated, “As thousand of Form-27 are filed in this office, it is very difficult to segregate Form-27 for the patent numbers enlisted in your RTI application as it needs diversion of huge official/ staff manpower and it will affect day to day work of this office.”</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">A few days after CIS received the reply from the IPO, Form 27 pertaining to patents in the landscape happened to start appearing on InPASS and IPAIRS E-register portal.</p>
<h3 class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Text of the application and the IPO’s response</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">(View a scanned copy of the application <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-app-2016.pdf/at_download/file">here</a> and of the response <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-reply-2016.pdf/at_download/file">here</a>)</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">11 March 2016</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">To</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Central Public Information Officer</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Boudhik Sampada Bhawan</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Near Antop Hill Post Office, S.M. Road,</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Antop Hill, Mumbai - 400037</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Dear Sir/ Madam,</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><b>Subject: Request for information under section 6 of the Right To Information Act, 2005; regarding Form 27 submissions for patents</b></p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Full name of the applicant: Ajoy Kumar</li>
<li>Address of the applicant: 194, 2<sup>nd</sup> C Cross, Domlur 2<sup>nd</sup> stage, Bangalore 560071</li>
<li><b>Details of the information required</b>: Please consider this an application under Section 6 of the Right To Information Act, 2005. This is an application for three pieces of information.</li>
</ol>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><i> </i></p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><i>Firstly, </i>you are requested to provide us with the Form 27 submissions for all the following patents for all the years for which they are available.</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><i>Secondly</i>, we also request a record of all the years for which such Form 27 submissions have not been made for each of the patents listed here.</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">In the event that you do not possess these documents, please transfer this application to the concerned authority within five days of its receipt and inform us of the same; as mandated under Section 6(3) of the Act.</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><b>Patent Numbers</b>:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>264868</li>
<li>264414</li>
<li>218424</li>
<li>236178</li>
<li>250862</li>
<li>264266</li>
<li>263473</li>
<li>264878</li>
<li>264343</li>
<li>257411</li>
<li>263618</li>
<li>258568</li>
<li>264451</li>
<li>222947</li>
<li>263817</li>
<li>258983</li>
<li>196731</li>
<li>256864</li>
<li>262863</li>
<li>264764</li>
<li>259008</li>
<li>196474</li>
<li>264532</li>
<li>265027</li>
<li>258788</li>
<li>248749</li>
<li>259831</li>
<li>265788</li>
<li>214641</li>
<li>252360</li>
<li>250406</li>
<li>209397</li>
<li>226831</li>
<li>235014</li>
<li>229789</li>
<li>265069</li>
<li>220354</li>
<li>254083</li>
<li>264352</li>
<li>231642</li>
<li>258698</li>
<li>261503</li>
<li>241959</li>
<li>214988</li>
<li>237117</li>
<li>264824</li>
<li>263358</li>
<li>235688</li>
<li>251240</li>
<li>236556</li>
<li>203034</li>
<li>203036</li>
<li>234157</li>
<li>203686</li>
<li>213723</li>
<li>229632</li>
<li>240471</li>
<li>241747</li>
<li>223183</li>
<li>243980</li>
<li>200572</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I submit that I have searched for copies of Form 27 filings of the above patents on the online portals of the Indian Patent Office, including the IPAIRS search engine and INPASS. As the search results did not yield the Form 27 documents, I am making this request under the Right To Information Act. Screenshots of three instances in which Form 27 was not found are attached in Annexure I. The respective patent numbers are mentioned along with the screenshots.</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">[Annexure I]</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">****************************************************************************************</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><b>Response from the IPO (reproduced verbatim)</b></p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Government of India</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Patent Office, Boudhik Sampada Bhavan</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">S.M. Road, Near Post Office,</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Antop Hill, Mumbai 400037, India</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Email: <a href="mailto:mumbai-patent@nic.in">mumbai-patent@nic.in</a></p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Website: <a href="http://www.ipindia.nic.in">www.ipindia.nic.in</a></p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Letter No: RTI/ 03</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">06/04/2016</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">To,</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Shri Ajoy Kumar,</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">194, 2<sup>nd</sup> C Cross,</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Domlur 2<sup>nd</sup> Stage</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Bangalore - 560071</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><b>Sub: Supply of information sought under RTI Act, 2005 - reg.</b></p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Sir,</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">With reference to your application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 dated 16/03/2016 in this regard the detailed parawise information as follows.</p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>As thousand of Form-27 are filed in this office, it is very difficult to segregate Form-27 for the patent numbers enlisted in your RTI application as it needs diversion of huge official/ staff manpower and it will affect day to day work of this office.</li>
<li>It is difficult to create such a record for the Patent numbers; you have listed for the same reason given above.</li>
</ol>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">However, copies of Form 27 for Patent nos. 222947, 259008, 258788, 250406, 235014, 203034, 203036, 234157, 203686, 213723, 240471 could be made available to you on paying prescribed copying charges of Rs. 480/- (120 x 4 = 480/-)</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Yours faithfully,</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Dr. Ujjwala Haldankar</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Assistant Controller of Patents and Designs & Central Public Information Officer</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-request-to-indian-patents-office-for-form-27-statement-of-working-of-patents-march-2016'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-request-to-indian-patents-office-for-form-27-statement-of-working-of-patents-march-2016</a>
</p>
No publisherrohiniIntellectual Property RightsAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2017-10-13T04:35:46ZBlog EntryRTI request to Indian Patents Office for Form 27 (Statement of Working of patents), 2015
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-request-to-indian-patents-office-for-form-27-statement-of-working-of-patents-2015
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society filed this request under the Right to Information Act in 2015 as part of research for the paper: Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products: An Empirical Assessment of India's Form 27 Practice and Compliance (July 2017). We sought Form 27 (also known as Statements of Working) pertaining to randomly selected patents found in our patent landscaping study. These forms were not available on the online public databases, InPASS and IPAIRS, at the time of the filing the RTI request. Research assistance was provided by intern Nayana Dasgupta.</b>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3004283">Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products: An Empirical Assessment of India's Form 27 Practice and Compliance</a> (July 2017)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Patent landscaping study -- <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2756486">Patents and Mobile Devices in India: An Empirical Survey</a> (April 2016)</li>
</ul>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">This was our first RTI request filed with the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks for the research on practices and compliance of patent holders to the Form 27 requirement. The response contained generic instructions about how to download Form 27 from the publicly-accessible online databases. The IPO also stated that, “The desired information relates to about 1700 patents for all the years, to supply and trace out the information physical form requires huge humane resource and need to divert the office staff for some days which would hampers the day-todays- official work therefore, the information is proactively disclosed in the office website for the public”.</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">We subsequently filed another RTI request with the Indian Patents Office while limiting the number of patents to 61. (View the application and response <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-request-to-indian-patents-office-for-form-27-statement-of-working-of-patents-march-2016">here</a>).</p>
<h3 class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Text of the application and IPO's response</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">(View a scanned copy of the application <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-app-2015.pdf/at_download/file">here</a> and the response <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-reply-2015.pdf/at_download/file">here</a>)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">10 June 2015</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To<br />Central Public Information Officer<br />Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks<br />Boudhik Sampada Bhawan<br />Near Antop Hill Post Office, S.M. Road,<br />Antop Hill, Mumbai - 400037<br /><br />Dear Sir/ Madam,</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><b>Subject: Request for information under section 6 of the Right To Information Act, 2005; regarding Form 27 submissions for patents</b></p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Full name of the applicant: Ajoy Kumar</li>
<li>Address of the applicant: 194, 2<sup>nd</sup> C Cross, Domlur 2<sup>nd</sup> stage, Bangalore 560071</li>
<li><b>Details of the information required</b>: Please consider this an application under Section 6 of the Right To Information Act, 2005. This is an application for three pieces of information.</li>
</ol>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><i> </i></p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><i>Firstly, </i>you are requested to provide us with the Form 27 submissions for all the following patents for all the years for which they are available.</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><i>Secondly</i>, we also request a record of all the years for which such Form 27 submissions have not been made for each of the patents listed here.</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><i>Thirdly, </i>we request a record of all the patents among those listed here which do not have a single Form 27 submission from the year of application/ grant.</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">In the event that you do not possess these documents, please transfer this application to the concerned authority within five days of its receipt and inform us of the same; as mandated under Section 6(3) of the Act.</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">[List of patent numbers]</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">*************************************************************</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><b>Response from the IPO (reproduced verbatim)</b></p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Government of India</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Patent Office, Boudhik Sampada Bhavan</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">S.M. Road, Near Post Office,</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Antop Hill, Mumbai 400037, India</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Email: <a href="mailto:mumbai-patent@nic.in">mumbai-patent@nic.in</a></p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Website: <a href="http://www.ipindia.nic.in">www.ipindia.nic.in</a></p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">No. RTI/Mum/38</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Date: 17/06/2015</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">To,</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Shri Ajoy Kumar,</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">194, 2<sup>nd</sup> C Cross,</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Domlur 2<sup>nd</sup> Stage</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Bangalore - 56007</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; "><b>Sub: Supply of information sought under RTI Act - reg.</b></p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Sir,</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">With reference to your application under RTI, dated 15.06.2015, wherein the information sought for form 27 details (commercial working of patent) for all the years for about 1700 patents application.</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Reply:</p>
<p class="normalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; ">a) The requested information can be had from the office website for the filing of form 27 <a href="http://www.ipindia.nic.in">www.ipindia.nic.in</a>,, go to http;//ipindiaservices.in/workingofpatents/</p>
<p class="normalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; ">b) Pelase see the print screen from where one can access the desired information</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">[Screenshot from ipindiaservices.gov.in/workingofpatents]</p>
<p class="normalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; ">c) Or the desired information also can be obtained under section 153, Rule.27 of the patents Act and Rules, as the information can be inspected the physical records under the Act.</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">d) The desired information relates to about 1700 patents for all the years, to supply and trace out the information physical form requires huge humane resource and need to divert the office staff for some days which would hampers the day-todays- official work therefore, the information is proactively disclosed in the office website for the public.</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">[Screenshots from ipindiaservices.gov.in/workingofpatents]</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Thanking you,</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Yours faithfully</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">(N. Ramchander)</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">Astt. Controller of Patents & Designs</p>
<p class="normal" style="text-align: justify; ">& CPIO, Patent Office, Mumbai</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-request-to-indian-patents-office-for-form-27-statement-of-working-of-patents-2015'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-request-to-indian-patents-office-for-form-27-statement-of-working-of-patents-2015</a>
</p>
No publisherrohiniIntellectual Property RightsAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2017-10-13T04:37:13ZBlog EntryCUSAT Workshop: "Rethinking IPR: Fourth Annual National Workshop for Law Students"
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/rethinking-ipr-fourth-annual-national-workshop-for-law-students
<b>The workshop was organized by the Inter University Centre for IPR Studies in association with Cochin University of Science and Technology from February 8 to 10, 2017 in Cochin. Pranesh Prakash was the resource person for a copyright workshop for LL.M. students. </b>
<p>Pranesh led and guided student discussion on:</p>
<ul>
<li> P2P File Sharing - Based on analysis of the Copyright Act I haven't yet written about.</li>
<li>Technological Protection Measures: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/tpm-copyright-amendment">http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/tpm-copyright-amendment</a></li>
<li>Benefits of Piracy: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://idl-bnc.idrc.ca/dspace/handle/10625/46491">http://idl-bnc.idrc.ca/dspace/handle/10625/46491</a></li>
<li>Misrepresentations of copyright industry: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/fallacies-lies-and-video-pirates">http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/fallacies-lies-and-video-pirates</a> + <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/calling-out-the-bsa-on-bs">http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/calling-out-the-bsa-on-bs</a> + <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/2010-special-301">http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/2010-special-301</a></li>
<li>John Doe orders: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/john-doe-orders-isp-blocking-websites-copyright-1">http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/john-doe-orders-isp-blocking-websites-copyright-1</a> (3-part series) + <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/delhi-high-court-orders-blocking-of-websites-after-sony-complains-infringement-of-2014-fifa-world-cup-telecast-rights">http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/delhi-high-court-orders-blocking-of-websites-after-sony-complains-infringement-of-2014-fifa-world-cup-telecast-rights</a></li>
</ul>
<hr />
<ul>
<li> See the <a class="external-link" href="http://ciprs.cusat.ac.in/ripr/ripr2014.php">event brochure</a></li>
<li>See the <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/files/rethinking-intellectual-property-rights">programme agenda</a></li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/rethinking-ipr-fourth-annual-national-workshop-for-law-students'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/rethinking-ipr-fourth-annual-national-workshop-for-law-students</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaIntellectual Property RightsAccess to Knowledge2017-03-29T10:59:29ZNews ItemFirst Asia Pacific Workshop on Empirical Methods in Innovation, Intellectual Property and Competition
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/first-asia-pacific-workshop-on-empirical-methods-in-innovation-intellectual-property-and-competition
<b>Rohini Lakshané took part in a workshop organized by Centre for Innovation Intellectual Property & Competition in New Delhi from March 9 to 11, 2017. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The workshop was open for legal academicians (who are working in the areas of intellectual property law and/or competition law) and regulators working with intellectual property law and competition law issues in the Asia-Pacific region. <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/files/ciipc-asia-pacific-workshop-on-empirical-methods-in-innovation-ip-and-competition">Click here</a> for the Agenda. More details on Spicy IP Blog <a class="external-link" href="https://spicyip.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/CIIPC_Call-for-Applications_First-Asia-Pacific-Workshop-on-Empirical-Methods-in-Innovation-IP-and-Competition.pdf">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/first-asia-pacific-workshop-on-empirical-methods-in-innovation-intellectual-property-and-competition'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/first-asia-pacific-workshop-on-empirical-methods-in-innovation-intellectual-property-and-competition</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaIntellectual Property RightsAccess to Knowledge2017-03-14T14:14:12ZNews ItemThe Digital Protection of Traditional Knowledge: Questions Raised by the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library in India
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/giswatch-december-9-2016-sunil-abraham-and-vidushi-marda-digital-protection-of-traditional-knowledge-questions-raised-by-traditional-knowledge-digital-library-in-india
<b>This is an edited version of part three of a study that considers the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) through aspects of intellectual property in India, namely, mobile patents, free and open source software, and India's Traditional Knowledge Digital Library. Through these, it demonstrates the potential of the internet in realising ESCRs.
</b>
<hr />
<p>The original report published by GISWatch can be <a class="external-link" href="https://www.giswatch.org/en/economic-social-and-cultural-rights-escrs/digital-protection-traditional-knowledge-questions-rais">read here</a>. Aditya Singh Chawla, Parvathy Nair, Raji Gururaj and Balaji Subramaniam provided research assistance for this paper during their internships with the Centre for Internet and Society. <a class="external-link" href="https://www.giswatch.org/sites/default/files/gw2016-thematic-traditional.pdf">Click to download the PDF</a></p>
<hr />
<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The first problem one encounters in studying traditional knowledge (TK) is the extent and meaning of the term itself. No globally accepted definition of TK exists,<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> and therefore no clear delineation of its scope. The definition adopted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is that TK is “knowledge, know-how, skills and practices that are developed, sustained and passed on from generation to generation within a community, often forming part of its cultural or spiritual identity.”<sup>4</sup> While TK embraces traditional cultural expressions within its ambit, and includes distinctive signs and symbols associated with traditional knowledge,<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> the scope of this report does not extend to traditional cultural expressions as they necessarily would fall under the purview of copyright law.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Before we frame TK in terms of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCRs), let us understand the phenomenom of biopiracy in a bit more detail using two examples, one connected to the right to food, and the other connected to health. Biopiracy is the use of intellectual property (IP) systems to legitimise control over biological products and processes that were previously used for centuries in non- industrialised cultures.<a href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> The case of neem-related patents, through which bio-prospectors attempted to appropriate the royalty arising from a plant whose medicinal value was already in the public domain, is well documented.<a href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> Another case worth noting is that of the “Enola bean”, in which Larry Proctor, a United States (US) citizen, purchased a package of Mexican beans of various colours, separated out the yellow ones, and spent three years selectively breeding the plants. He then named his line “Enola” and obtained patent protection for the bean, its plant, its pollen, and the method of producing it.<a href="#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5"><sup>[5]</sup></a><a href="#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6"><sup>[6]</sup></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This case is far more worrying than the neem case for two reasons.<a href="#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> First, it was a case that had an immediate and tangible impact on the producers of the commodity in that yellow Mexican beans were exported into the United States before the patent was granted, and the assertion of the patent led to significant reductions in bean exports, representing a quantifiable economic loss for bean farmers.<a href="#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8"><sup>[8]</sup></a> Second, the patent was allowed to stand for almost a decade, amounting to half the life of a legitimate patent.<a href="#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9"><sup>[9]</sup></a> This represents an incredibly unjust outcome – an invention (“specifically selected yellow beans”) arising from traditional knowledge in the public domain (since Mexican farmers had been cultivating and exporting these beans) being monopolised by a private entity illegally for almost a decade.</p>
<p>The differences between TK and other forms of IP are the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>With other forms of IP, property rights are afforded to the innovator or creator, whereas communities own TK.</li>
<li>Other forms of IP are designed as incentive mechanisms for the creation of new property; however, there is no such incentive to create new property with TK.</li>
<li>IP is also time-bound, whereas TK is held in perpetuity from generation to generation.</li>
<li>The invention under IP must also satisfy the requirement for novelty and industrial application, whereas TK does not have these requirements.</li>
</ul>
<p>Although patent law is not tailored to protect TK, it has been used to prevent misappropriation of TK.</p>
<h2>The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At the turn of the millennium, an expert group found that roughly 2,000 patents linked to India’s TK in medicine were being granted annually around the world.<a href="#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10"><sup>[10]</sup></a> This expert group proposed the establishment of the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL)<sup>13 </sup>in order to reduce biopiracy. The TKDL was envisaged as “a home-grown effort to ensure patent offices around the world do not grant patents for applications founded on India’s wealth of TK that has existed for millennia.”<sup>14</sup> In 2001 India launched the initiative, which digitised its wide repository of TK, with the hope of enabling the protection of this knowledge and preventing its misuse.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The TKDL is a digital knowledge repository of Indian traditional knowledge about medicinal plants and formulations, and practices used in Indian systems of medicine. Its knowledge base is primarily derived from Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Yoga. These areas are being documented by collating the information on TK from literature existing in local languages such as Sanskrit, Urdu, Arabic, Persian and Tamil in digitised format. These have been made available in five international languages: English, German, Spanish, French and Japanese. While it is clear that the first three systems of medicine (i.e. Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha) are systems that have a corresponding system of traditional medicines, the framing of Yoga as a system of medicine is unclear as there is no medicine administered to the patient. Increasingly, however, medical procedures are being patented, and the Indian government in August 2015 shortlisted 1,500 yoga asanas to be included in the TKDL to prevent foreign parties from patenting them.<a href="#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11"><sup>[11]</sup></a> This was in response to several yoga-related patents being applied for<a href="#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12"><sup>[12]</sup></a> and granted<a href="#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13"><sup>[13]</sup></a> around the world, notably in the United States.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The TKDL’s appeal lies in the manner in which it approaches attempts to patent TK (the “state of the art”) – it serves to pre-empt the granting of a patent, rather than to contest a patent’s validity after it has been granted. This, it is claimed, reduces the time taken to contest claims from a matter of years to a few weeks.<a href="#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14"><sup>[14]</sup></a></p>
<h2>Defining the right</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The protection of TK can be primarily placed within Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). In order to understand the relationship between TK and Article 15, we must first appreciate that TK is also scientific knowledge. There are two ways in which the right of the TK community can be mapped onto Article 15. First, the Article recognises “the right to take part in cultural life”, and second, “to enjoy the benefits from scientific progress and its applications”. This ensures that communities have the right to continue to operationalise and use TK. Further, Article 15 includes the right “to benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production”. However, while this is a universal right, in practice it will only happen when national law recognises the property rights of the community, facilitates protection of these rights, takes legal action against infringements, and provides mechanisms for the collection and distribution of royalties. What might not strike the reader as obvious is that the benefits of protecting the moral and material interests in the world of TK accrue to the community, while in other forms of IP the rights holder is either an individual or corporation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Article 11 of the ICESCR is also relevant to TK. It recognises the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. Article 11 (2) (a) mandates that states parties to the Covenant take measures to “improve methods of production, conservation and distribution of food by making full use of technical and scientific knowledge, by disseminating knowledge of the principles of nutrition and by developing or reforming agrarian systems in such a way as to achieve the most efficient development and utilization of natural resources.”<a href="#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15"><sup>[15]</sup></a> TK is connected to food in multiple ways, such as ecosystem and landscape management, water management, soil conservation, biological control of pests and diseases, ecological agriculture and livestock practices, and plant and animal breeding – and most importantly, with regard to the latter, breeding and preserving varieties of plant and animal species. Suman Sahai, founder of the Gene Campaign,<a href="#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16"><sup>[16]</sup></a> helps us understand the connection between food security and traditional knowledge. She argues that farmers are a community of women and men who have not only created several thousand breeds of food and cash crops, but also “identified valuable genes and traits in these crops and maintained them over generations through a highly sophisticated system of crossing and selection.”<a href="#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17"><sup>[17]</sup></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There exist a host of international and national norms, both of a general and a specific nature, enunciating the right of indigenous communities to their traditional knowledge. One specific example is the World Health Organization’s approach to Traditional and Complementary Medicine (T&CM). In this, it urges states to “prevent the misappropriation of T&CM by implementing the relevant international instruments in line with the WHO global strategy and plan of action on public health, innovation and intellectual property, adopting or amending national intellectual property legislation, and enacting other defensive protection strategies.”<a href="#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18"><sup>[18]</sup></a></p>
<p>India has signed the Convention on Biological</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Diversity (CBD), a treaty with 194 parties in total.<a href="#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19"><sup>[19]</sup></a> The CBD provides for the respect, preservation and maintenance of “knowledge, innovation and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity”, and also for encouraging the wider application of such practices while ensuring that the benefits arising from such utilisation are shared equit ably with the communities in question.<a href="#_ftn20" name="_ftnref20"><sup>[20]</sup></a> Having signed this convention, India has the duty to protect this knowledge without appropriating it, and the TKDL is a means to protect this right.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Such provisions have been included in India’s Biological Diversity Act,<a href="#_ftn21" name="_ftnref21"><sup>[21]</sup></a> which was enacted in pursuance of India’s duties under the CBD. Restrictions on the granting of patents for inventions arising from research on biological resources,<sup>26</sup> the transfer of biological resources or knowledge,<a href="#_ftn22" name="_ftnref22"><sup>[22]</sup></a> and the enforcement of equitable benefit sharing<a href="#_ftn23" name="_ftnref23"><sup>[23]</sup></a> aim to serve as effective legal bars to biopiracy and unauthorised use of traditional knowledge.</p>
<h2>Successes of the TKDL</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Since the inception of the TKDL, in just under two years, and in Europe alone, India has succeeded in using this resource to bring about the cancellation or withdrawal of 36 applications to patents traditionally known as medicinal formulations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Between 2001 and 2015, out of a total of 189 pharmaceutical applications which include medicines, therapeutics, etc., 21 were granted while 17 were rejected. An additional 30 were deemed withdrawn and another 31 were abandoned. At the time of writing, 90 have their examination still in progress. Out of the 10 applications under cosmetics, seven are under progress while one each has been accepted, rejected and deemed to be withdrawn. There was only one application under agriculture which was rejected. The domain of food had three applications out of which one was rejected, one deemed to be withdrawn and the last one in progress.<a href="#_ftn24" name="_ftnref24"><sup>[24]</sup></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India and the US had the maximum number of applications at 75 and 43 respectively. Japan and Korea were third and fourth at 16 and 11 respectively. Most of these applications were in progress, with 12 applications from India being rejected and 17 being abandoned. Only five had been granted to India while three were deemed to be withdrawn; 38 of India’s applications and 12 of those from the US are pending. Taiwan and Jordan’s only applications were granted while Spain’s only application was rejected.<a href="#_ftn25" name="_ftnref25"><sup>[25]</sup></a></p>
<p><b>But do digital databases work as a form of IP protection?</b></p>
<p>While proponents of the database have been vocal in their vision for its application, it has received criticism on several grounds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">First of all, there is a fair amount of disagreement regarding the best possible means through which TK can be protected.<a href="#_ftn26" name="_ftnref26"><sup>[26]</sup></a> Indeed, existing literature already features catalogues of international law (both “hard” and “soft”), regional norms and domestic legislation that accord protection to TK within the framework of culture.<a href="#_ftn27" name="_ftnref27"><sup>[27]</sup></a> While some believe that data aggregation and record creation is the best means to tackle biopiracy, others propose different approaches,<a href="#_ftn28" name="_ftnref28"><sup>[28]</sup></a> such as negotiating access agreements between indigenous communities and bio-prospectors.<a href="#_ftn29" name="_ftnref29"><sup>[29]</sup></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Secondly, the TKDL has also attracted criticism because of its high level of confidentiality. In response to a right to information application, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) clarified that the TKDL can only be accessed by foreign patent offices.<a href="#_ftn30" name="_ftnref30"><sup>[30]</sup></a> It is not made available to the Indian Patent Office or to CSIR scientists. As per the same response, the decision to make the TKDL confidential was taken during a cabinet meeting in 2006, but there exists no legal instrument that mandates such confidentiality. TK databases in other countries do not impose access restrictions. The Korean Traditional Knowledge Portal, for example, explicitly states the motivation behind making itself publicly available:</p>
<p>The database is presented on-line through the Korean Traditional Knowledge Portal (KTKP). The reasons for making the database publicly accessible through the KTKP are as follows:</p>
<ol>
<li>To lay the foundation for international protection of Korean traditional knowledge, thereby preventing unauthorized use of patents inside and outside the country.</li>
<li>To provide an abundance of information on traditional knowledge and related research, thereby expediting the development of related studies and industries.</li>
<li>To provide essential information for patent examinations, thereby enhancing the quality of intellectual property applications for traditional knowledge.<a href="#_ftn31" name="_ftnref31"><sup>[31]</sup></a></li>
</ol>
<p>Similarly, the contents of the China Traditional Medicine Patent Database are also publicly available on the internet.<a href="#_ftn32" name="_ftnref32"><sup>[32]</sup></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Finally, the TKDL has also raised questions of copyright, with claims that it falls foul of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957, since it has digitised works (such as translations or compilations of ancient texts) that are still under copyright without the consent of their authors.<sup>38</sup> Responding to the same right to information application discussed above, the CSIR claimed that no consent was required since the traditional knowledge in question was authored many years ago. This is a perplexing position to take, as there is significant skill and labour involved in translating and compiling these ancient texts and putting this knowledge together, which merits copyright protection.<a href="#_ftn33" name="_ftnref33"><sup>[33]</sup></a></p>
<h2>The need for open knowledge systems</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There seems to be no reason to keep a valuable resource such as the TKDL away from the public’s reach, especially considering the fact that the entire project was bankrolled by the Indian taxpayer. Restricting access to the TKDL severely limits the benefit that the general public could derive from this knowledge. Even if one were to accept that there exist compelling reasons to keep the data confidential, it is clear that the TKDL, by its very nature, cannot possibly be invulnerable to breach. Problems of access control are endemic to large databases – it has been postulated that large aggregations of secret data are fundamentally impossible because security must be traded off for ease of access in such situations. Thus, “you cannot construct a database with scale, functionality and security because if you design a large system for ease of access it becomes insecure, while if you make it watertight it becomes impossible to use.”<a href="#_ftn34" name="_ftnref34"><sup>[34]</sup></a> For this reason, governments have been urged to make use of centralised databases only when absolutely necessary.<a href="#_ftn35" name="_ftnref35"><sup>[35]</sup></a> If we accept the premise that centralised databases cannot possibly be both accessible and secure, then we must examine whether the TKDL represents a balanced trade-off between accessibility and confidentiality.</p>
<p>There are three changes that are necessary in this regard:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>The need to push for open knowledge </i>A system like the TKDL constitutes a mechanism for <i>defensive protection</i> of TK – it seeks to keep TK in the public domain rather than to exclusively put it in the hands of the community that evolved it. This is similar to the Peer-to-Patent<a href="#_ftn36" name="_ftnref36"><sup>[36]</sup></a> initiative, which ensures that more eyes are involved in following the process: a crowd-sourced approach to preventing inappropriate appropriation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>The need to address legal barriers </i>Primarily, the TKDL’s data seems to be far from infallible, with several reports of mistranslations<a href="#_ftn37" name="_ftnref37"><sup>[37]</sup></a> and exaggerated claims<a href="#_ftn38" name="_ftnref38"><sup>[38]</sup></a> made by the CSIR. Apart from this, the most important requirement that the TKDL must fulfil is for its data to meet the legal criteria established for prior art in various jurisdictions. This would entail ensuring that the knowledge is made available with clear evidence of the date of its publication, and the presentation of the knowledge in a manner that clearly establishes that a patent claim is anticipated by the data contained in the library.<a href="#_ftn39" name="_ftnref39"><sup>[39]</sup></a> Further, the fundamental challenge faced by any defensive protection mechanism is its vulnerability to differing definitions of prior art in various jurisdictions:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><i>European Patent Convention (EPC):</i> The most TKDL-friendly jurisdictions are those such as the EU. The EPC defines prior art as “everything made available to the public by means of a written or oral description, by use, or in any other way, before the date of filing of the European patent application”.<a href="#_ftn40" name="_ftnref40"><sup>[40]</sup></a> Thus, innovations detailed in the works indexed by the TKDL would fall within the definition of prior art, and therefore be unpatentable – assuming, of course, that all the works digitised and translated by the database were publicly available. An overwhelming majority of the TKDL’s self-proclaimed “successes” have been achieved in the EU – around 120 of the 180 “successful outcomes” are against European patent applications.<a href="#_ftn41" name="_ftnref41"><sup>[41]</sup></a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><i>United States:</i> On the other end of the spectrum is the US definition of prior art. The United States Patent Act provides that a person “shall be entitled to a patent unless (a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent.”<sup>48</sup> This effectively excludes protection for any non-published knowledge outside the US. Further, given the restrictive access to the TKDL, it appears that the database would not fall within the definition of a “printed publication”, since it has never been “published” – merely circulated among patent examiners on conditions of non-disclosure. Thus, it appears that there is no legal basis for the TKDL to be cited as evidence of prior art in the US, or other jurisdictions that have similar definitions of prior art.<a href="#_ftn42" name="_ftnref42"><sup>[42]</sup></a></li>
</ul>
<p><i>The need to address structural barriers</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In choosing to characterise itself as an archive of prior art, the TKDL has placed the burden of enforcing TK assertions upon patent examiners around the world. In doing so, it has pigeonholed itself into a doctrine (namely prior art) that has a tendency to go largely unheard in patent examinations. With studies showing that more experienced patent examiners, typically occupying higher positions in the patent office, are less likely to cite examples of prior art in their examinations,<a href="#_ftn43" name="_ftnref43"><sup>[43]</sup></a><a href="#_ftn44" name="_ftnref44"><sup>[44]</sup></a> and still other evaluations showing that applicants for patents are extremely unlikely to provide and identify prior art surrounding their claims,<a href="#_ftn45" name="_ftnref45"><sup>[45]</sup></a> it is evident that there are structural imbalances working against the efficacy of the prior art doctrine in preventing illegitimate patent claims. Thus, efforts must be made to counter this imbalance at two levels: first, access to the TKDL must be made as easy as possible; second, the TKDL has to undertake proactive patent monitoring efforts.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Patent monitoring, while an onerous and expensive task, is nevertheless necessary for the success of a defensive system such as the TKDL, especially in those jurisdictions which do not have the legislative framework to enable provisions of the CBD that mandate disclosure of genetic material sources.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For the reasons stated above, the access policy of the TKDL requires significant modification if the database is to reach its true potential for providing accurate, efficient and time-bound protection to TKbased innovations through the use of a centralised database that is wired into a network of interested parties.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">TK systems require all the external support they can get in order to protect their mandate. Civil society must engage effectively with the TKDL initiative, encourage the accuracy of its records through research, and stimulate dialogue regarding the key issues discussed in this report. As pointed out by the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous people: “Much more needs to be done to understand fully how … treaties and agreements can undermine or reinforce indigenous peoples’ rights and how they shape the trajectories of national economic development plans.”<a href="#_ftn46" name="_ftnref46"><sup>[46]</sup></a></p>
<hr />
<p><a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> Traditional Knowledge, WIPO. <a href="http://www.wipo.int/tk/en/tk">www.wipo.int/tk/en/tk </a> 4 Ibid.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> WIPO. (2010). <i>List and Brief Technical Explanation of Various Forms in which Traditional Knowledge May be Found</i>.<a href="http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/doc_details.jsp?doc_id=147152"> www.wipo.int/ </a><a href="http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/doc_details.jsp?doc_id=147152">meetings/en/doc_details.jsp?doc_id=147152 </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3">[3]</a> Shiva, V. (2001). <i>Protect or Plunder? Understanding Intellectual Property Rights. </i>London: Zed Books.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4">[4]</a> See, e.g., Horsbrugh Porter, A. (2006, 17 April). Neem: India’s tree of life. <i>BBC</i>. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4916044.stm">news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4916044.stm</a>; BBC. (2005, 9 March). India wins landmark patent battle. <i>BBC</i>. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4333627.stm">news. </a><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4333627.stm">bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4333627.stm</a>; Hoggan, K. (2000, 11 May). Neem tree patent revoked. <i>BBC</i>. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/745028.stm">news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ </a><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/745028.stm">science/nature/745028.stm </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5">[5]</a> In re POD-NERS, L.L.C., Re-examination No. 90/005,892, US Fed.</p>
<p>Cir. 2009. <a href="http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/08-1492/08-1492-2011-03-27.html">law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/08-</a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6">[6]</a> <a href="http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/08-1492/08-1492-2011-03-27.html">/08-1492-2011-03-27.html </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7">[7]</a> It is also noteworthy for another reason: it is illustrative of the time and effort required to contest claims after a patent has been granted. Proponents of the TKDL would argue that what took a decade in the Enola bean case could have been achieved in a manner of weeks at the application stage by a patent office equipped with such a database.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8">[8]</a> Shashikant, S., & Asghedom, A. (2009, 12 August). The ‘Enola Bean’ dispute: patent failure & lessons for developing countries. <i>Third World Network</i>. <a href="http://twn.my/title2/wto.info/2009/twninfo20090811.htm">twn.my/title2/wto.info/2009/ </a><a href="http://twn.my/title2/wto.info/2009/twninfo20090811.htm">twninfo20090811.htm </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9">[9]</a> Crouch, D. (2009, 10 July). Mexican Yellow Bean Patent Finally Cooked. <i>Patently-O</i>. <a href="http://patentlyo.com/patent/2009/07/mexican-yellow-bean-patent-finally-cooked.html">patentlyo.com/patent/2009/07/mexican</a><a href="http://patentlyo.com/patent/2009/07/mexican-yellow-bean-patent-finally-cooked.html">yellow-bean-patent-finally-cooked.html </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10">[10]</a> Gupta, V. K. (2011). <i>Protecting Indian Traditional Knowledge from Biopiracy. </i>WIPO. <a href="http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/meetings/en/2011/wipo_tkdl_del_11/pdf/tkdl_gupta.pdf">www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/meetings/ </a><a href="http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/meetings/en/2011/wipo_tkdl_del_11/pdf/tkdl_gupta.pdf">en/2011/wipo_tkdl_del_11/pdf/tkdl_gupta.pdf </a> 13 <a href="http://www.tkdl.res.in/tkdl/langdefault/common/Home.asp?GL=Eng">www.tkdl.res.in/tkdl/langdefault/common/Home.asp?GL=Eng</a> 14 Gupta, V. K. (2011). Op. cit.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11">[11]</a> PTI. (2015, 9 August). Over 1500 yoga asanas shortlisted to thwart patenting by foreign parties. <i>Indian Express</i>. <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/over-1500-yoga-asanas-shortlisted-to-thwart-patenting-by-foreign-parties">indianexpress.com/ </a><a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/over-1500-yoga-asanas-shortlisted-to-thwart-patenting-by-foreign-parties">article/india/india-others/over-1500-yoga-asanas-shortlisted-to</a><a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/over-1500-yoga-asanas-shortlisted-to-thwart-patenting-by-foreign-parties">thwart-patenting-by-foreign-parties </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12">[12]</a> TNN. (2007, 18 May). US patent on yoga? Indian gurus fume. <i>Indian Express.</i> <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/US-patent-on-yoga-Indian-gurus-fume/articleshow/2058285.cms">timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/US-patent-on</a><a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/US-patent-on-yoga-Indian-gurus-fume/articleshow/2058285.cms">yoga-Indian-gurus-fume/articleshow/2058285.cms </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13">[13]</a> Lee, T. B. (2013, 13 December). A yoga patent? Here’s why the USPTO approves so many dubious applications. <i>Washington Post</i>. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/12/13/a-yoga-patent-heres-why-the-uspto-approves-so-many-dubious-applications">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/ </a><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/12/13/a-yoga-patent-heres-why-the-uspto-approves-so-many-dubious-applications">wp/2013/12/13/a-yoga-patent-heres-why-the-uspto-approves-so</a><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/12/13/a-yoga-patent-heres-why-the-uspto-approves-so-many-dubious-applications">many-dubious-applications </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14">[14]</a> Press Information Bureau. (2010, 28 April). India Partners with US and UK to Protect Its Traditional Knowledge and Prevent Bio-Piracy. <a href="http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=61122">pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=61122 </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15">[15]</a> www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CESCR.aspx</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16">[16]</a> <a href="http://genecampaign.org/">genecampaign.org </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17">[17]</a> Sahai, S. (1996). Importance of Indigenous Knowledge in IPR. <i>Economic and Political Weekly, 31</i>(47).</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18">[18]</a> World Health Organization. (2013). WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2014-2023. <a href="http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/92455/1/9789241506090_eng.pdf?ua=1">apps.who.int/iris/ </a><a href="http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/92455/1/9789241506090_eng.pdf?ua=1">bitstream/10665/92455/1/9789241506090_eng.pdf?ua=1</a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19">[19]</a> List of Parties, Convention on Biological Diversity. <a href="https://www.cbd.int/information/parties.shtml">https://www. </a><a href="https://www.cbd.int/information/parties.shtml">cbd.int/information/parties.shtml </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20">[20]</a> Article 8(j) of the Convention on Biological Diversity.<a href="https://www.cbd.int/convention/text"> https://www.</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.cbd.int/convention/text">cbd.int/convention/text </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref21" name="_ftn21">[21]</a> <a href="http://nbaindia.org/content/25/19/1/act.html">nbaindia.org/content/25/19/1/act.html</a> 26 Section 6 of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref22" name="_ftn22">[22]</a> Section 20 of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref23" name="_ftn23">[23]</a> Section 21 of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref24" name="_ftn24">[24]</a> <a href="http://www.tkdl.res.in/tkdl/langdefault/Common/ExaminerReport.asp?homepage=sub">www.tkdl.res.in/tkdl/langdefault/Common/ExaminerReport.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.tkdl.res.in/tkdl/langdefault/Common/ExaminerReport.asp?homepage=sub">asp?homepage=sub </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref25" name="_ftn25">[25]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref26" name="_ftn26">[26]</a> WIPO. (2010). Op. cit., Annex 2.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref27" name="_ftn27">[27]</a> See, e.g., Coombe, R. J. (2005). Protecting Traditional</p>
<p>Environmental Knowledge and New Social Movements in the</p>
<p>Americas: Intellectual Property, Human Right, or Claims to an Alternative Form of Sustainable Development? <i>Florida Journal of International Law,</i> <i>17</i>(1), 115-136.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref28" name="_ftn28">[28]</a> Swiderska, K. (2006). <i>Banishing the Biopirates: A New Approach to Protecting Traditional Knowledge</i>. International Institute for Environment and Development. <a href="http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/14537IIED.pdf">pubs.iied.org/pdfs/14537IIED.pdf</a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref29" name="_ftn29">[29]</a> Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore. (2002). <i>Review of Existing Intellectual Property Protection of Traditional Knowledge</i>. WIPO. <a href="http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/tk/en/wipo_grtkf_ic_3/wipo_grtkf_ic_3_17-main1.html">www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/tk/en/wipo_grtkf_ic_3/ </a><a href="http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/tk/en/wipo_grtkf_ic_3/wipo_grtkf_ic_3_17-main1.html">wipo_grtkf_ic_3_17-main1.html </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref30" name="_ftn30">[30]</a> Reddy, P. (2012, 29 March). Is the TKDL a ‘confidential database’ and is it compliant with Indian copyright law? <i>SpicyIP</i>.<a href="http://spicyip.com/2012/03/is-tkdl-confidential-database-and-is-it.html"> spicyip. </a><a href="http://spicyip.com/2012/03/is-tkdl-confidential-database-and-is-it.html">com/2012/03/is-tkdl-confidential-database-and-is-it.html</a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref31" name="_ftn31">[31]</a> <i>KTKP Introduction</i>, Korean Traditional Knowledge Portal.<a href="http://www.koreantk.com/en/m_about/about_01.jsp?about=1"> www. </a><a href="http://www.koreantk.com/en/m_about/about_01.jsp?about=1">koreantk.com/en/m_about/about_01.jsp?about=1</a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref32" name="_ftn32">[32]</a> Brief introduction of China Traditional Medicine (TCM) Patent Database, China TCM Patent Database. <a href="http://221.122.40.157/tcm_patent/englishversion/help/help.html">221.122.40.157/tcm_ </a><a href="http://221.122.40.157/tcm_patent/englishversion/help/help.html">patent/englishversion/help/help.html </a>38 Op. cit.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref33" name="_ftn33">[33]</a> Reddy, P. (2012, 21 April). The need for an ‘independent’ review of the TKDL project<i>. SpicyIP</i>. <a href="http://spicyip.com/2012/04/need-for-anindependent-review-of-tkdl.html">spicyip.com/2012/04/need-for</a><a href="http://spicyip.com/2012/04/need-for-anindependent-review-of-tkdl.html">anindependent-review-of-tkdl.html </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref34" name="_ftn34">[34]</a> Proposed by Ross J. Anderson, this thumb-rule has come to be known as Anderson’s Rule. See: Porter, H. (2009, 10 August). Nine sacked for breaching core ID card database. <i>The Guardian</i>.<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/henryporter/2009/aug/10/id-card-database-breach"> www. </a><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/henryporter/2009/aug/10/id-card-database-breach">theguardian.com/commentisfree/henryporter/2009/aug/10/ </a><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/henryporter/2009/aug/10/id-card-database-breach">id-card-database-breach </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref35" name="_ftn35">[35]</a> See, e.g., Anderson, R. et. al. (2009). <i>Database State</i>. Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. <a href="http://www.jrrt.org.uk/sites/jrrt.org.uk/files/documents/database-state.pdf">www.jrrt.org.uk/sites/jrrt.org.uk/files/</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.jrrt.org.uk/sites/jrrt.org.uk/files/documents/database-state.pdf">documents/database-state.pdf </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref36" name="_ftn36">[36]</a> <a href="http://www.peertopatent.org/">www.peertopatent.org </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref37" name="_ftn37">[37]</a> Rathi, M. (2012, 20 April). Guest Post – TKDL: A success – Really?</p>
<p><i>SpicyIP</i>. <a href="http://spicyip.com/2012/04/guest-post-tkdl-success-really.html">spicyip.com/2012/04/guest-post-tkdl-success-really.html</a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref38" name="_ftn38">[38]</a> Reddy, P. (2012, 19 March). Guest Post: The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library and the EPO. <i>SpicyIP</i>. <a href="http://spicyip.com/2012/03/guest-post-traditional-knowledge.html">spicyip.com/2012/03/guest</a><a href="http://spicyip.com/2012/03/guest-post-traditional-knowledge.html">post-traditional-knowledge.html </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref39" name="_ftn39">[39]</a> Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore. (2003). <i>Practical Mechanisms for the Defensive Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Genetic Resources within the Patent System.</i> WIPO.<a href="http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/tk/en/wipo_grtkf_ic_5/wipo_grtkf_ic_5_6.pdf"> www.wipo. </a><a href="http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/tk/en/wipo_grtkf_ic_5/wipo_grtkf_ic_5_6.pdf">int/edocs/mdocs/tk/en/wipo_grtkf_ic_5/wipo_grtkf_ic_5_6.pdf</a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref40" name="_ftn40">[40]</a> Article 54(2) of the Convention on the Grant of European Patents. <a href="https://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-texts/epc.html">https://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-texts/epc.html</a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref41" name="_ftn41">[41]</a> <i>Outcomes against bio-piracy</i>, Traditional Knowledge Digital Library. <a href="http://www.tkdl.res.in/tkdl/langdefault/common/Outcome.asp">www.tkdl.res.in/tkdl/langdefault/common/Outcome.asp</a> 48 35 U.S.C. § 102(a).</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref42" name="_ftn42">[42]</a> Quinn, G. (2009, 30 November). US Patent Office to Reject Based on Traditional Knowledge. <i>IPWatchdog</i>. <a href="http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2009/11/30/us-patent-office-to-reject-based-on-traditional-knowledge/id=7502">www.ipwatchdog.com/2009/11/30/us-patent</a><a href="http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2009/11/30/us-patent-office-to-reject-based-on-traditional-knowledge/id=7502">office-to-reject-based-on-traditional-knowledge/ </a><a href="http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2009/11/30/us-patent-office-to-reject-based-on-traditional-knowledge/id=7502">id=7502 </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref43" name="_ftn43">[43]</a> Lemley, M. A., & Sampat, B. (2012). Examiner Characteristics and</p>
<p>Patent Office Outcomes. <i>The Review of Economics and Statistics,</i></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref44" name="_ftn44">[44]</a> (3), 817-827. <a href="http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00194?journalCode=rest">www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/ </a><a href="http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00194?journalCode=rest">REST_a_00194?journalCode=rest </a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref45" name="_ftn45">[45]</a> Sampat, B. (2010). When do Applicants Search for Prior Art? <i>The Journal of Law and Economics, 53</i>(2), 399-416.<a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/651959?journalCode=jle"> www.journals. </a><a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/651959?journalCode=jle">uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/651959?journalCode=jle</a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref46" name="_ftn46">[46]</a> Human Rights Council. (2014). Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous People. <a href="http://unsr.vtaulicorpuz.org/site/index.php/documents/annual-reports/26-annual-report-hrc-2014">unsr.vtaulicorpuz.org/site/index. </a><a href="http://unsr.vtaulicorpuz.org/site/index.php/documents/annual-reports/26-annual-report-hrc-2014">php/documents/annual-reports/26-annual-report-hrc-2014</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/giswatch-december-9-2016-sunil-abraham-and-vidushi-marda-digital-protection-of-traditional-knowledge-questions-raised-by-traditional-knowledge-digital-library-in-india'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/giswatch-december-9-2016-sunil-abraham-and-vidushi-marda-digital-protection-of-traditional-knowledge-questions-raised-by-traditional-knowledge-digital-library-in-india</a>
</p>
No publisherSunil Abraham and Vidushi MardaIntellectual Property RightsAccess to Knowledge2016-12-09T15:50:36ZBlog EntryWorkshop on Competition Law and Policy
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/workshop-on-competition-law-and-policy
<b>National School of Law India University and the Delegation of European Union to India jointly organized a workshop at Competition Commission of India in New Delhi from October 19 - 21, 2016. Anubha Sinha and Rohini Lakshané participated and made presentations. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The workshop was organized under the broader EU-India project titled "Capacity Building Initiative in Competition Area under Trade Development Programme" sponsored jointly by European Union Delegation and National Law School of India University, Bengaluru.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Download</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/workshop-brochure-cci.pdf" class="internal-link">Workshop brochure</a></li>
<li>Anubha Sinha's presentation on "<a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cci-presentation.pdf" class="internal-link">Investigation into the sub $100 Mobile Device Industry from IPR + Competition law lens</a>"</li>
<li>Rohini Lakshané's presentation on <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cci-workshop-on-competition-law-and-policy.pdf" class="external-link">CCI Workshop on Competition Law and Policy Competition Policy and Internet</a></li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/workshop-on-competition-law-and-policy'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/workshop-on-competition-law-and-policy</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaIntellectual Property RightsAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2016-10-23T01:51:25ZNews ItemWorkshop on Innovation, Economic Development and IP in India and China
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/workshop-on-innovation-economic-development-and-ip-in-india-and-china
<b>Anubha Sinha and Rohini Lakshané presented at the SMU-JINDAL-RENMIN Workshop on “Innovation, Economic Development, and IP in India and China,” co-organised by the Singapore Management University, O.P. Jindal Global University, and Renmin University of China, in Delhi during September 27-28, 2016. Amitabh Kant, Chief Executive Officer, NITI Aayog, delivered the inaugural address at the workshop.</b>
<p> </p>
<p>Workshop Brochure: <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/invitation-workshop-innovation-economic-development-and-ip-in-india-and-china" class="internal-link">Download</a> (PDF)</p>
<hr />
<h4>Anubha Sinha - "Investigating Limits to Innovation and Peer Production in India's Mobile Apps Economy"</h4>
<p>Slides: <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/investigating-limits-to-innovation-and-peer-production-in-indias-mobile-apps-economy" class="internal-link">Download</a> (PDF)</p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="420" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/hBZDkyN9kkgCfM" width="510"> </iframe></p>
<p> </p>
<h4>Rohini Lakshané - "Exploring Open Hardware in Mass Produced Mobile Phones"</h4>
<p>Slides: <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/exploring-open-hardware-in-mass-produced-mobile-phones" class="internal-link">Download</a> (PDF)</p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="420" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/N8TpwEtUAb4hRH" width="510"> </iframe></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/workshop-on-innovation-economic-development-and-ip-in-india-and-china'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/workshop-on-innovation-economic-development-and-ip-in-india-and-china</a>
</p>
No publisherAnubha Sinha and Rohini LakshanéPeer ProductionAccess to KnowledgeIntellectual Property RightsOpen HardwareOpen InnovationMobile AppsPatents2016-10-09T04:41:38ZNews ItemMethodology: Statements of Working (Form 27) of Indian Mobile Device Patents
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/methodology-statements-of-working-form-27-of-indian-mobile-device-patents
<b>In India, if a patent is not locally worked within three years of its issuance, any person may request a compulsory license, and if the patent is not adequately worked within two years of the grant of such a compulsory license, it may be revoked. In order to provide the public with information about patent working, India requires every patentee to file an annual statement on “Form 27” describing the working of each of its issued Indian patents. We conducted the first comprehensive and systematic study of all Forms 27 filed with respect to mobile devices. We tried to empirically establish the extent to which patentees and licensees comply with the statutory requirement to declare information about the working of their patents.
Research assistance was provided by interns Anna Liz Thomas and Nayana Dasgupta.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The research paper on patent landscape, <a class="external-link" href="https://www.vanderbilt.edu/jotl/wp-content/uploads/sites/78/6.-Contreras-Web.pdf">Patents and Mobile Devices in India: An Empirical Survey</a>, [PDF] was published in the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law (2017).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The research paper on "Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products: An Empirical Assessment of India's Form 27 Practice and Compliance" has been published <a class="external-link" href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3004283">here</a> (July 2017).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The dataset of all the Form 27 studied for this paper has been published <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/dataset-for-patent-working-requirements-and-complex-products-an-empirical-assessment-of-indias-form-27-practice-and-compliance">here</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p><b>Research Questions</b></p>
<ol>
<li>How many annual Form 27 submissions have been made to the Indian Patent Office for 4,419 granted patents identified in the landscape of mobile device patents in India?</li>
<li>How many patents have no corresponding Form 27 filed yet?</li>
<li>How many Form 27 submissions from those found are defective?</li>
<li>Is there an identifiable pattern in the defects and discrepancies?</li>
<li>Is there any discernible trend in filing of Form 27 over time and with respect to patent owners?</li>
</ol>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The objective of this paper is to quantitatively determine the extent to which patentees and licensees comply with the statutory requirement to declare information about the working of their patents according to Section 146(2) of the Patents Act, 1970 read with Rule 131 of the Patent Rules, 2003.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Section 146(2): Without prejudice to the provisions of sub-section (1), every patentee and every licensee (whether exclusive or otherwise) shall furnish in such manner and form and at such intervals (not being less than six months) as may be prescribed statements as to the extent to which the patented invention has been worked on a commercial scale in India.</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Rule 131: Form and manner in which statements required under section 146(2) to be furnished </i></p>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><i>The statements shall be furnished by every patentee and every licensee under sub-section (2) of section 146 in Form 27 which shall be duly verified by the patentee or the licensee or his authorised agent.</i></li>
<li><i>The statements referred to in sub-rule (1) shall be furnished in respect of every calendar year within three months of the end of each year.</i></li>
<li><i>The Controller may publish the information received by him under sub-section (1) or sub-section (2) of section 146.</i></li>
</ol>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Object</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The research object is Form 27 submissions made annually to the Indian Patent Office for the 4,419 granted patents.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">4,052 of these patents were identified in the landscape (“the patent landscape”) developed by the Centre for Internet and Society as a part of ongoing research on patents pertaining to sub-USD-100 mobile devices sold in India. The dataset of the patent landscape can be <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/dataset-patent-landscape-of-mobile-device-technologies-in-india">accessed here</a>. Another 367 patents pertaining to mobile technology identified during the landscaping exercise but excluded from it, were added to the initial set of 4,052 patents.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A blank copy of Form 27 is <a class="external-link" href="http://ipindia.nic.in/ipr/patent/manual/HTML%20AND%20PDF/Manual%20of%20Patent%20Office%20Practice%20and%20Procedure%20-%20html/Forms/Form-27.pdf">available here</a>. The <i>pro forma</i> is defined as per Schedule II of Patent Rules, 2003.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Research Methods</h2>
<p>[Corresponding research questions</p>
<ol>
<li>How many annual Form 27 submissions have been made to the Indian Patent Office for 4,419 granted patents identified in the landscape of mobile device patents in India?</li>
<li>How many patents have no corresponding Form 27 filed yet?</li>
<li>How many Form 27 submissions from those found are defective?]</li>
</ol>
<h3>Outsourcing the searching of the submitted copies of Form 27 to a contractor</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Owing to the repetitive nature of the process for collecting the forms, as well the large scale of the project, the task of searching was outsourced to a contractor. Price quotations were invited from five data entry operators and two firms of patent attorneys. On the basis of the quotation, deliverable time, scope and nature of the results delivered, and quality assurance, the contract was awarded to one firm. The firm offered the best price for a commensurate deliverable time and assured quality of results.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Form 27 retrieval online</h3>
<p>Form 27 were searched from IPAIRS (Indian Patent Information Retrieval System) and InPASS (Indian Patent Advanced Search System) public databases of the Indian Patent Office.</p>
<p>InPASS has two features: Application Status and E-Register. We checked both features, in case forms not found through one could be located through the other. We indeed found that, sometimes, the forms not available on E-register could be found through the Application Status table, and vice versa.</p>
<h3>Case 1: Accessing form 27 using Application Status tab on INPASS</h3>
<ol>
<li>A search portal is located at ipindiaservices.gov.in/publicsearch.<br /><br /></li>
<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Pass.png" alt="Pass" class="image-inline" title="Pass" /></p>
<li>Enter the patent number in the “Patent Number” search field without the kind codes (IN) and click on “Search”. E.g., for patent number IN263932B, enter ‘263932’ in the “Patent Number” field.</li>
<li>Once the queried patent is displayed, select the “Application Status” tab to access the list of documents that were filed for the requested patent.<br /><br /></li>
<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_Pass.png" alt="Pass" class="image-inline" title="Pass" /></p>
<li>In the Application Status tab, scroll down to the bottom to view “Application Status table”. Click on the “View Documents” button to access the list of the documents filed for the queried patent. A pop-up window opens with the results.<br /><br /></li>
<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy2_of_Pass.png" alt="Pass" class="image-inline" title="Pass" /></p>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">In the window, a list of hyperlinks to various documents is displayed. Sometimes Form 27/ working statement is explicitly named so. At other times, it may have a different title. Once you click on the form 27 link, a PDF file opens in a new tab. There may be more than one Form 27 in the list of documents as Form 27 is an annual submission.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Case 2: No record of Form 27 found (Application status tab)</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">If the form is not present on InPASS, that is, if it has not been uploaded to the website, or if it has not been submitted to the Indian Patent Office (IPO), then it will not be displayed in the list of documents described in Case 1, step 5. Such instances have been logged as “No record found”.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Case 3: Accessing form 27 using E-Register tab on INPASS</h3>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">At <a class="external-link" href="http://ipindiaservices.gov.in/publicsearch">http://ipindiaservices.gov.in/publicsearch</a>, a patent search portal is displayed. Enter the patent number by following the same steps as described in Case 1 until the queried patent is displayed. Select the “E-register” tab to access the e-register data corresponding to the queried patent.</li>
<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy3_of_Pass.png" alt="Pass" class="image-inline" title="Pass" /></p>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">In the “E-register” tab, scroll to the bottom to view the “Information u/s 146” table. The “Information u/s 146” table includes a list of Form 27 filed for the queried patent. As visible in the screenshot below, on clicking the “261762_2015” hyperlink, Form 27 for the queried patent opens. There could be multiple form 27s corresponding to different years.</li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy4_of_Pass.png" alt="Pass" class="image-inline" title="Pass" /></p>
<h3>Case 4: No record of Form 27 found (E-register)</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">If the form is not present in the E-register, that is, if it has not been uploaded to the website or if it has not been submitted to the IPO, then the E-Register tab displays “Eregister Not Available”.</p>
<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy5_of_Pass.png" alt="Pass" class="image-inline" title="Pass" /></p>
<h3>Case 5: Searching on IPAIRS</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Both InPASS and IPAIRS fetch forms from the same URL. However, we observed that one search engine sometimes displays the forms when the other doesn’t. The IPAIRS search engine was used when Form 27 was not found on InPASS.</p>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">IPAIRS patent search homepage: http://ipindiaonline.gov.in/patentsearch/search/index.aspx On the home page, in the Application Status tab, enter the full patent application number and CAPTCHA.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">A window containing information pertaining to the patent application opens. At the bottom of the window, there is a “View Documents” button.</li>
<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy6_of_Pass.png" alt="Pass" class="image-inline" title="Pass" /></p>
<li>On clicking on “View Documents”, a new window with list of hyperlinked documents opens as described in Case 1, Step 5.<br /><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy7_of_Pass.png" alt="Pass" class="image-inline" title="Pass" /></li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p>The URL for the new window displayed via “View Documents” on IPAIRS is the same as the URL displayed via “View Documents” in the “Application Status” tab on InPASS. For example, for patent number 263932, the URL for this window is the same on IPAIRS and InPASS: http://ipindiaonline.gov.in/patentsearch/GrantedSearch/viewdoc.aspx?id=Bx6eZ7YQLgsl3yH1LqKHjg==&loc=wDBSZCsAt7zoiVrqcFJsRw==</p>
<h3>Form 27 retrieval via Right To Information (RTI) requests</h3>
<p>CIS filed two requests under the RTI Act, 2005 with the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks in Mumbai.</p>
<ul>
<li>CIS' RTI application to the Indian Patent Office in Mumbai, March 2016 [<a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-app-2016.pdf/at_download/file">PDF]</a>. The IPO's reply, April 2016 [<a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-reply-2016.pdf/at_download/file">PDF</a>].</li>
</ul>
<p>(View text: <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-request-to-indian-patents-office-for-form-27-statement-of-working-of-patents-march-2016">https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-request-to-indian-patents-office-for-form-27-statement-of-working-of-patents-march-2016</a>)</p>
<ul>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>CIS' RTI application to the IPO in Mumbai, June 2015 [<a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-app-2015.pdf/at_download/file">PDF</a>]. The IPO's reply, June 2015 [<a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-reply-2015.pdf/at_download/file">PDF</a>].</li>
</ul>
<p>(View text: <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-request-to-indian-patents-office-for-form-27-statement-of-working-of-patents-2015">https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-request-to-indian-patents-office-for-form-27-statement-of-working-of-patents-2015</a>)</p>
<ul>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">InPASS and IPAIRS yielded Form 27 for 1,999 patents out of 4,419. For Form 27 pertaining to 61 of the remaining patents, CIS made a request in March 2016 under the Right to Information Act (2005) to the office of the Indian Patent Office located in Mumbai.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>How the 61 patents were chosen<br /></b>37 of the 50 companies in the patent landscape owned granted patents. We took one patent from each of the 37 companies. [See <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/fifty-companies.pdf">Annexure 4</a> (PDF)of Methodology: Patent landscaping in the Indian mobile device market] The remaining were <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/compilation-of-mobile-phone-patent-litigation-cases-in-india">patents litigated in India</a>, as well as patents transferred from one of the companies in the landscape to another.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>IPO’s reply to the March 2016 RTI application <br /></b>The IPO replied in April 2016 that it could provide CIS with forms for eleven of the requested patents. As for the rest of the forms, the IPO stated, “As thousand [sic] of Form-27 are filed in this office, it is very difficult to segregate Form-27 for the patent numbers enlisted in your RTI application as it needs diversion of huge official/ staff manpower and it will affect day to day [sic] work of this office.”</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Repeating the Form 27 search online</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A few days after CIS received the reply from the IPO, Form 27 pertaining to patents in the landscape started appearing on InPASS and IPAIRS E-register portal. CIS’ contractor repeated the search for forms for all 4,419 patents as some forms filed in 2016 and 2015 were found. Forms for additional 1,003 patents were found, taking the number of patents with at least one corresponding form to 3,002.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Of the 1,417 patents for which forms were not found, 481 are either expired or there is no log corresponding to them in the E-Register.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Schema for the results</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Information from the Form 27 was logged into a spreadsheet with the following heads:<br />Serial Number -- Assignee -- Patent Number -- Status -- Application Date -- Grant Date -- Title -- Application Number -- Form 27 presence -- Multiple Forms -- Number of years -- Year -- If Worked -- Working/ Non-working Status -- Working/ Non-working Information -- Licensing Status -- Licensing Information -- Comments.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Detailed legend and process of logging the results</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Assignee</b>: Name of the company that owns the patent. <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/fifty-companies.pdf">Annexure 4</a> [PDF] lists 50 companies studied for the patent landscape. 37 of those companies owned patents in India. Thus, the assignee could be one of 37 companies among the 50 in Annexure 4. Where two assignees are mentioned, the patent was transferred from the second assignee to the first on account of sale of the patent, company merger, etc. For example, "Huawei|NEC" indicates that a patent that belonged to NEC was transferred to Huawei.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Form 27 presence: </b>Whether or not Form 27 was found. Entries in this column are either “Yes” or “No”. If case Form 27 was not found, the subsequent columns are unpopulated.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Multiple Forms: </b>If more than one Form 27 was found, the number of years for which it was found. In some cases, more than one form was found for the same patent for the same year. We have considered these instances as a single form for the same year and noted the defect in the “Comments” column.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Year</b>: The year for which the form was filed. This information was found in #2 of the pro forma of Form 27. In the case of patents with Form 27 filed for more than one year, the entries for different years have been logged into consecutive rows.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>If Worked:</b> This information was found in 3(i) of the pro forma. Depending on whether the text of Form 27 states that the patent was “worked” or “not worked”, results have been logged as either “Yes” or “No”. In instances where it is not explicitly stated whether the patent has been worked or not, or where 3(i) is blank, the results are logged as “Not disclosed” with a description of the defect in the “Comments” column.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Working/ Non-working status: </b> Corresponds to 3(i)a in the case of patents stated as “worked” and to 3(i)b in the case of those stated as “not worked”. The results have been marked as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Description is generic (future use)</li>
<li>Description is generic (present use)</li>
<li>Description is specific</li>
<li>No description</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Description is generic (future use)</b>: No specific information been provided as required by 3(i)a or 3(i)b. The description indicates that in the future the patentee might “work” or license the patent or do both. E.g: “May be worked in the future depending on the market demand and when technology is mature.”</p>
<p>Or</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“We are still assessing the commercial and technological aspects of working of this patent in India and negotiating marketing and distribution of patented product with related parties.”</p>
<p>Or</p>
<p>“Technical developments [sic] are still continuing” or “Negotiations and technical developments [sic] are still continuing”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Description is generic (present use): </b>No specific information been provided as required by 3(i)a or 3(i)b. The description indicates that the patentee may be “working” the patent. E.g:, “DUE TO THE NATURE OF THE INVENTION, IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO DETERMINE ACCURATELY WHETHER THE PATENTED INVENTION HAS BEEN WORKED IN INDIA OR NOT. Improvements in the invention are continuing to be made. The Patentee is actively looking for licensees and customers to commercialise the invention in the Indian environment.”</p>
<p>Or</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“... This patent is among a large number of patents in the patentee’s complex portfolio which may cover the products services and embedded technologies provided by the patentee or its licensee(s) in India. This patent might worked [sic] in India in some of the patentee(s) existing or future products, services and embedded technologies. Given the extremely Iarge number of patents that may apply to any given product or service of the patentee, it is very difficult to Identify and accurately update which of those patents would apply to the numerous products, services and embedded technologies.”</p>
<p><b>Description is specific: </b>Specific information has been provided as required in 3(i)a or 3(i)b.</p>
<p>E.g, “Quantum of the patented product-303520 and value of the patented product in INR-2790524299”.</p>
<p><b>No description:</b> 3(i)a and 3(i)b are blank.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Working/non-working information:</b> Contains the full text of the descriptions mentioned in “Working/non-working status” column. These have been reproduced verbatim from Form 27 filings.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Licensing status: </b>States whether or not the patent has been licensed as per 3(ii) of the pro forma for Form 27. Results are logged as “Yes” (licensed), “No” (no-licensed), “Cross-licensed” and “Not disclosed”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Not disclosed” indicates that the response to 3(ii) is either blank or there is an explicit statement that licensing information would not be disclosed on Form 27. E.g: “As all the licenses are confidential in nature, the details pertaining to the same are not being disclosed herein and may be provided to the Patent Office as and when the same is specifically directed by the Patent Office under sealed cover so that such details are not laid open in public domain.”</p>
<p><b>Licensing information: </b>Contains the full text of the response reproduced verbatim from 3(ii). (Blank fields when there is no text in 3(ii))</p>
<p>For patents marked as licensed, this column contains the names and addresses of licensees and/ or sub-licensees.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For patents marked as not-licensed, this column is either blank or contains statements such as, “Information Not readily available; efforts will be made to collect and submit further information, if asked for.”, “None”, “No licensees”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For patents marked as “cross-licensed”, the patentee states that it has a cross-licensing agreement with its licensees. E.g: “There is a cross license agreement between <company name> and at least one licensee, giving mutual rights to produce despite monopoly afforded by patents that are hold by any of the companies. There is no information available on whether the technology of said patent is included products sold by such licensee. As all the licenses are confidential in nature, the details pertaining to the same shall be provided under specific directions from the Patent Office.”</p>
<p><b>Comments: </b>Contains information about defects and notable observations from the Form 27 submissions.</p>
<h2>Validation of results</h2>
<p>Validation of the results was done via deduplication first and then random sampling of 10% of the results.</p>
<h2>Analysis of results</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">[Corresponding research questions:<br />4. Is there an identifiable pattern in the defects and discrepancies?<br />5. Is there any discernible trend in filing of Form 27 over time and with respect to patent owners?]<br /><br />The results logged into the spreadsheet were analysed to find a pattern in the defects in the submissions. Visualisations will be created, if necessary.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Prior Art</h2>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Extraordinary writ petition in the matter of a public interest litigation, filed in the High Court of Delhi, Shamnad Basheer vs Union of India and others, C.M. No. 5590 of 2015 <a href="http://spicyip.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/FORM-27-WP-1R-copy.pdf">http://spicyip.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/FORM-27-WP-1R-copy.pdf</a> <br /><br />The petitioner(s) “sought to investigate the commercial working of certain patented inventions in India, particularly in relation to three key areas”. One of these areas include telecommunications technology. Para 53 to 58 of the writ elucidate on the petitioners’ observations and findings on “High technology patents and trolls”, while para 59 and 60 refer to the linkage between patents and products. Annexure P-8 of this petition contains copies of Form 27 filed by Ericsson in India. Annexure P-11 contains a “summary of findings of Form 27 investigations conducted by the petitioner”. Annexure P-4 (II. Telecommunications Sector) contains a list of 58 patents pertaining to the telecommunications domain in India. 21 of these are coincide with the patent landscape mentioned in “Research Object”.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Basheer had published a report in 2011 based on the findings of his RTI investigation of Form 27 pertaining to pharmaceutical patents in India. The report titled “RTI Applications and “Working” of Foreign Drugs in India?” is available at: <a href="http://www.spicyip.com/docs/Workingpatents.doc">http://www.spicyip.com/docs/Workingpatents.doc</a> The report sheds light on lack of filing, incomplete filing and violation of patent working norms by pharmaceutical companies. He states having encountered difficulties during the RTI process: <i>The RTI process was a very arduous one, with the patent office refusing information or claiming missing files in some cases. We had to resort to the appellate procedure in almost all cases. And in one case concerning the drugs Tarceva and Sutent, both the CPIO (Delhi office) and the appellate authority refused to provide information. We had to then take the matter up directly with Controller General PH Kurian who immediately ordered that the information be provided. Upon his instructions, the information was provided within 24 hours. However, we received this information only on the 4<sup>th</sup> of April 2011, more than 6 months since we began the RTI process! (Source:</i> Drug Firms and Patent "Working": Extent of Compliance with Form 27 <a href="http://spicyip.com/2011/04/drug-firms-and-patent-working-extent-of.html">http://spicyip.com/2011/04/drug-firms-and-patent-working-extent-of.html</a></li>
</ol>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Limitations</h2>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">If Form 27 is not found on InPASS or INPAIRS, it is not possible to determine if the form has not been submitted to the IPO or it has been submitted but the IPO has not uploaded it. There is no publicly available database or log where such information is available.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Technical issues with the IPAIRS website hampered the speed of searching for and downloading Form 27. At the time of trial run in May 2015, the website was not available for nearly a week. Technical issues also lead to conflicting search results on IPAIRS and INPASS at times. For example, the form may be available via one search engine but not via another, even though they are fetched the files from the same database. Runtime errors occur due to browser caching. </li>
<br /></ol>
<p><b>Edited, September 10, 2017: </b>To add -- URLs of the research paper on Form 27 published in July 2017, and of the dataset containing raw data, which was published and licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.</p>
<ol> </ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/methodology-statements-of-working-form-27-of-indian-mobile-device-patents'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/methodology-statements-of-working-form-27-of-indian-mobile-device-patents</a>
</p>
No publisherrohiniIntellectual Property RightsPatentsAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2017-09-10T15:19:51ZBlog EntryInternational Conference on Innovation for Shared Prosperity
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/international-conference-on-innovation-for-shared-prosperity
<b>Rohini Lakshane attended a conference on IP Rights, Competition and Standard Setting in the IT industry on August 20 and 21, 2016. The conference was organized by O.P. Jindal Global University and Jindal Initiative on Research in IP & Competition. </b>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/InternationalConference.jpg" alt="International Conference" class="image-inline" title="International Conference" /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/international-conference-on-innovation-for-shared-prosperity'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/international-conference-on-innovation-for-shared-prosperity</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaIntellectual Property RightsAccess to KnowledgeICT2016-08-25T02:40:59ZNews ItemSub$-100 Phones: Browser Compatibility Tests
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sub-100-phones-browser-compatibility-tests
<b>This post documents the results of browser compatibility tests conducted on six out of eight specimen mobile phones being studied under the Pervasive Technologies project. These phones are Internet-enabled and cost the equivalent of USD 100 or less in India. Rohini Lakshané and CIS volunteer Dhananjay Balan carried out the tests. Intern Shreshth Wadhwa provided assistance.</b>
<ul>
<li>Names and descriptions of mobile phones under study: <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/annexure-1-mobile-phones-to-study.pdf">Annexure 1</a></li>
<li>How the phones under study were chosen: <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patent-landscaping-in-the-indian-mobile-device-market">Section 3.2: Criteria for choosing the mobile phones</a></li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Research Question:</h3>
<p>What technical standards are browsers pre-installed in the eight test phones compatible with?</p>
<p>This question partially answers research question #2 in <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patent-landscaping-in-the-indian-mobile-device-market">Methodology: Patent Landscaping in the Indian Mobile Device Market</a>, that is, what patents pertain to [technical] capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less?</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Method:</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We conducted tests on all browsers pre-installed, that is, installed by the manufacturer, on six mobile phones to understand their extent of compliance with technical standards for the web. All browsers were tuned to their default settings and no plugins or extensions were installed in them. The tests could not be run on two phones for reasons stated in "Limitations".<br /><br />For Android v4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and higher versions, we set up a local host and automated all the tests by using a script. The local host was set up to expose sample HTTP endpoints. We tested all browsers through this server.<br /><br />A Shell script was used to acquire screenshots of the results of the tests:<br /><i>#!/bin/bash<br /><br />adb shell screencap -p $1<br />adb pull $1</i><br /><br />We collected screenshots of devices with Android versions below v4.0 by capturing the framebuffer since the shell command was introduced in v4.0.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Script:</b> Github - https://gist.github.com/dbalan/e58f51b713bfd6d711fd02061e27ca90 or <b><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/github" class="internal-link">Download as .zip</a></b>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Android version numbers, where applicable, can be found in the “User Agent” row of the test results. We took photos of the screens for the rest of the devices.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Standards and capabilities tested:</h3>
<p><b>Browser Network Support</b></p>
<ol>
<li>HTTP/1.1</li>
<li>HTTP/2</li>
<li>SSL</li>
<br /></ol>
<p><b>Acid Tests</b></p>
<p>Acid tests 1, 2, and 3 (http://www.acidtests.org) were run on all phones.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Acid 1 tests for compliance to the CSS 1.0 standard; Acid 2 for HTML 4, CSS 2.1, PNG, and data URLs. Acid 3 for SVG, HTML, SMIL, Unicode, DOM, ECMAScript (Javascript), and CSS 3, among other parameters. Here is the full list of specifications tested by Acid 3: http://www.webstandards.org/action/acid3/x</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Image Formats</b></p>
<ul>
<li>JPEG</li>
<li>GIF</li>
<li>PNG</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<h3></h3>
<h3></h3>
<h3>Results</h3>
<p>View as <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sub-100-mobile-phones-browser-compatibility-tests" class="internal-link">.ods</a>; View as <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sub-100-phones-browser-compatibility">.xls</a></p>
<h3></h3>
<h3></h3>
<h3>Reading the results:</h3>
<p>User-agent string</p>
<p><i>Example 1: Micromax Canvas Engage A091<br />User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 4.4.2; Micromax A091 Build/A091) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/34.0.1847.114 Mobile Safari/537.36</i></p>
<p style="text-align: left; "><b>Mozilla/5.0</b>: Mozilla Firefox browser, version number<br />This is a user-agent token.</p>
<p><b>Linux</b>: Linux kernel<b> </b></p>
<p><b>Android 4.4.2:</b> Operating system, version number<b> </b></p>
<p style="text-align: left; "><b>Micromax</b> <b>A091</b>: Device ID</p>
<p style="text-align: left; "><b>Build/A091:</b> Build number.</p>
<p style="text-align: left; ">This is a customised Android build by Micromax. (Build numbers of stock Android 4.4.2 are KOT49H and KVT49L).<b> </b></p>
<p style="text-align: left; "><b>AppleWebKit/537.36</b>: WebKit, version number. WebKit by Apple is a component of a layout engine that renders web pages in browsers. It is based on KHTML.KHTML: HTML layout engine developed by KDE. Licensed LGPL.</p>
<p style="text-align: left; "><b>like Gecko</b>: A browser that behaves like a Gecko browser<br /><b> </b></p>
<p style="text-align: left; "><b>Chrome/34.0.1847.114</b>: Chrome for Android browser, version number<br /><b> </b></p>
<p style="text-align: left; "><b>Mobile:</b> Either mobile browser or mobile device, or both <br /><b> </b></p>
<p style="text-align: left; "><b>Safari/537.36:</b> Apple Safari browser, version number</p>
<p><i>Example 2: Opal Cyher-Shot NX900<br />User-agent: Dorado WAP-Browser/1.0.0/powerplay/2</i></p>
<p><b>Dorado WAP-Browser/1.0.0:</b> User agent key, version</p>
<p>This is a WAP browser for mobile phones <a class="external-link" href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://thadafinser.github.io/UserAgentParserComparison/v4/user-agent-detail/d5/a6/d5a63f05-4b47-48b9-bcf6-9f1ff3d90867.html%23&sa=D&ust=1468082385035000&usg=AFQjCNEAjT9HLfuO9JJIzoAKXm095JixAA">based on a Java engine</a>. <i><br /></i></p>
<h3>Observations:</h3>
<p>Browsers pre-installed on phones of Indian brands comply with all technical standards and capabilities tested for. All of these phones -- Intex, Lava and Micromax -- also run on the Android operating system. In the case of failed tests, the results are the same or similar for most mobile phones. For example, Opera Mini 7.5 on Intex Aqua N15 and on Micromax Canvas Engage A091 scored 97/100 in the Acid3 test. This is in line with the <a class="external-link" href="http://d30ohmzj0cjdlk.cloudfront.net/en/Acid3">results released by Acid</a> for Opera Mini 7.5 and also by the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.browserscope.org/?category=acid3&v=top&ua=Opera%20Mini*&o=csv">Browserscope</a> project for profiling web browsers.</p>
<p>Awang, Yestel and Opal are brands from China or Hong Kong. The only pre-installed browser on Awang A808, an Android v2.3 (Gingerbread) phone, also cleared all tests but one. It scored 95/100 in the acid3 test, which is the case for the Firefox browser on most Gingerbread phones. The browsers on non-Android phones Yestel and Opal failed the tests for Acid1, Acid2, Acid3 and HTTP2, which indicates that while these phones are technically Internet-enabled, their users do not enjoy many of the benefits of the modern web.</p>
<h3>Screenshots or photos of results:</h3>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/photos-and-screenshots" class="internal-link">View photos and screenshots</a><br />The name of the file is in the format: <name of browser>_<name of format/ acid test with number>.<file extension><br />In the case of default browsers, <name of browser> appears as “android”.</p>
<h3>Limitations:</h3>
<p>Eight phones were under study. However, one of the phones (HiBro) did not contain a pre-installed browser. The only way to access the Internet on this phone was through pre-installed apps such as Facebook.</p>
<p>The operating system of Kechaoda K16, which was Java-based, did not yield to the script used for running the tests. It had one pre-installed WAP browser. Both these phones were excluded from the tests.<br /><br />Screenshots could not be obtained for the results of tests of two phones, Opal Cyher-Shot NX900 and Yestel Q5S+. We took photos of their screens instead.</p>
<ol> </ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sub-100-phones-browser-compatibility-tests'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sub-100-phones-browser-compatibility-tests</a>
</p>
No publisherrohiniIntellectual Property RightsAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2017-02-16T16:47:02ZBlog EntryNational Conference on Competition & IPR in ICT, Telecom & Mobile Sets
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/national-conference-on-competition-ipr-in-ict-telecom-mobile-sets
<b>Rohini Lakshané and Anubha Sinha attended this conference held at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on May 18, 2016. The event was organized by CMAI.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This was a specific conference dedicated to Make in India especially Mobile, Telecom and role of Competition v/s IPR. The speakers were from CCI, Industry and Legal luminaries. There is a need to arrive at balance between Competition and IPR. The conference was aimed to address the issues of IPRs v/s competition, role of SSO in standard settings, SEP’s contentions, basis of FRAND negotiations and need to recommend to Government to form an appropriate policy that is suitable for Make in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The conference focused on the need to discuss these issues with all the stakeholders and come out with appropriate status on the date and its relevance on Make in India and appropriate recommendations to the government. Further details of the conference can be <a class="external-link" href="http://cmai.asia/cci/">accessed here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/national-conference-on-competition-ipr-in-ict-telecom-mobile-sets'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/national-conference-on-competition-ipr-in-ict-telecom-mobile-sets</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaIntellectual Property RightsAccess to Knowledge2016-05-30T01:50:19ZNews Item